[MR] Re: SCA Pres

[Betty Eyer]

--- Kandi32583 at aol.com wrote:
> Stop to check in on your children and make
> sure that they are never left 
> alone with one adult, even for bathroom trips.  If
> you have an uneasy feeling 
> about a particular person, do not leave your
> children with them, its as simple 
> as that.
Actually, I think there are (or were - been awhile
since I checked) guidelines to this affect in the
Atlantia officer's policies about kid's activities but
there is no enforcement and generally this does not
happen.  The argument is that we would never be able
to run kid's activities if we enforced it.  I think
that if we had an education campaign to explain WHY
this is so important, we would find the support to
back it.  Corwyn has done a lot in his term to make
alcohol regulation enforcement about 100% better, why
not something as important as this?

Other organizations who do kids activities including
the YMCA and the Boy Scouts have already been down
this road - why don't we as an organization look at
some of their policies?  It's not like the SCA
invented this problem, but our general dislike of
rules and regulations does leave us vunerable to this
type of issue. 

If we did just one thing to protect our kids, to
protect our members from false allegations and to
protect the Society from law suits, enforcing the rule
about always having more than one adult running
children's activities would be it.  Also, having
children's activities in a well populated place, near
adult activities like fighting and A&S is also a very
good idea.  Secrets and bad behavior like dark
corners.  So put the kid's activities front and center
- this is also more convenient for parents who want to
stay active and stay in touch with their kids.  I
don't think autocrat's should allow children's
activities in private camps as any part of a
published, SCA-endorsed event schedule.  Ever.

Not that I feel strongly about the subject, or
anything like that.

=====
Magdalena de Hazebrouck-Purpure, a fess fusilly argent between three torches or. 
"There are two types of music.  The Blues and Zippity Doo Dah." Townes Van Zandt

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